Obligatory Thanksgiving Wines Post

It appears to be all the rage to post about what wines to serve on Thanksgiving. So here's mine.

{NOTE: If you came to this post looking for Thanksgiving Wines to Pair with Annoying Relatives you’ll find it here.}

Everyone has been asking--What are you going to open for Thanksgiving? Well normally if all the family is gathering at my house the first thing I want to open is a vein, but barring that I like to cope with Prosecco from the Valdobbiadene region of Italy followed swiftly by a few pre-dinner Negronis. I select a variety of whites and reds to pair with dinner.

Whites: Viognier, preferably Bonny Doon, which I adore. I usually always have a Riesling on hand and lately I've been loving the Kim Crawford unoaked Chardonnay from New Zealand. I also like Costomolino Vermentino from Sardegna.

Reds: Mostly I go with all Italian wines since my family is Italian so I typically have Dolcetto and Nebbiolo but since most everyone is dead now, I think I will break with family tradition and I'm leaning towards the Mourvedre from Quivira and possibly the Shane Valenti Ranch Syrah.

Extra Wine in Food: It has become a tradition to make my Mother's famous "Tipsy Cranberry Mold" which is basically Jello with fruit and wine used in lieu of water. It sets up kinda weird and it's not all that good, but as kids we loved it for the way it made us feel all warm and numb, and that's important if you want to create a harmonious mood around the dinner table. Just for nostaliga sake, I've included the recipe written out in her own hand below.

Recipe calls for 6 Cups Red Wine!

Post Meal: It's Grappa shots all around. My favorite Grappa is Grappa Di Sarno from a boutique distillery in Umbria.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Related posts:  Thanksgiving Wines to Pair with Annoying Relatives

Experiments in Wine and Health Care: Lambrusco in the Netti Pot

A few weeks ago I gave my glass of wine a little bit too hearty a sniff, and darn if I didn’t inhale a tablespoon or more of wine. It was a bit shocking not to mention messy. But afterwards I seemed to be able to breathe better. Probably because I was no longer on the verge of drowning.

So today I was having some allergy problems due to an ongoing bathroom remodel in my house and figured I should use the neti pot to do some nasal irrigation and prevent any build up of nasty sheet rock dust in my sinuses. Normally one uses a salt or baking soda mixture in a netti pot to create a harmonious yet cleansing environment in the nasal and sinus cavities. I didn’t have any salt or baking soda on hand so I turned to what I thought would be the next best thing—Lambrusco. I just happened to have some left over from the night before. It was fresh and bubbly even a tad astringent so I figured why not and poured it in the netti pot.

On the palate the Lambrusco’s fruity effervescence is light and pleasing, but up the nose and thru the sinuses it’s downright roiling. The pain was so sharp I thought my eyes were going to explode and my brain stem was going to pop out my ear. The Lambrusco that did not go thru my sinuses backed up into my throat and all I can say about that is that wine is best experienced by going over the tongue en route to the throat, not the other way around. I’m hoping I did not introduce any harmful bacteria with this stunt but I figure the alcohol content will kill off any stray microbes. I don’t recommend that you actually try this if you want to have access to your olfactory senses for the remainder of your life, but it was an invigorating experience and left my sinuses feeling as clear as limpid pools of spring melt in a glacial valley.

Next time: Getting Crazy with the Cheez Whizz & Ear Candleing with Twizzlers

Haber Family Vineyards

Sue-Marie and Ron Haber

Recently I was invited to a tasting of the 2006 Diamond Mountain District Cabernet Sauvignon with Ron and Sue-Marie Haber at the haber family vineyard on Howell Mountain outside Angwin.

It’s always great to meet new winemakers who are excited to share what they love, and especially nice to meet people who are as unpretentious as their wine.

Ron and his family have been in the construction business for several generations and specialize in metal and glass systems for commercial structures. Many of the glass edifices and decorative elements you see in major buildings in New York and around the country are work of the W&W Glass Company.

Thus it is fitting that the label for their first release the 2006 Diamond Mountain District Cabernet Sauvignon is a windowpane through which you see the moon and the stars above the mountain ridge. Reflected back by the moonlight is the Haber logo. It’s a clever label that encapsulates the elements of Haber’s past achievements and the prospects for the future.

The bottle we tasted was decanted the evening before and I noticed many changes in the wine as we sampled it. Ron is a fan of mountain fruit and his wine reflects that bold flavor. I detected deep berry fruit but also notes of chocolate and even mint. Sue-Marie laid out a lovely lunch including some roasted figs, which she at first thought too ripe and sweet to serve, but I thought they were just right with the wine.

Winemaker Tim Milos, who also creates wine for Rubissow and Howell at the Moon, gave us details on the soil, weather conditions and the challenges of growing in this particular region.

For now the wine is in its early stages, but I think a nice lamb and butternut squash stew might coax it out of its shyness. Haber’s background creating glass structures of integrity, strength and elegance may prove to be good experience for making wine with the same characteristics. And just as the label depicts, the Haber wine is a wine for reflection.

The Details:

Varietal: Cabernet Sauvignon

Aging: 20 Months

Fermentation: 85% French New Oak

Bottled: August 15^th 2008

380 cases produced

$80 a bottle

A Touch of Glass

I received a sample of the Eisch Breathable glass and conducted the following experiment to see if it had any noticeable effect on the wine. I was not paid to write this and I probably won’t be offered to sample anything else after this, but a girl can hope.

The premise behind the Eisch glass is that it is designed to be “ breathable” and aerate the wine faster than decanting. I tested the Eisch glass along with a glass of similar size, shape and quality.

I am a big fan of good glass. I really believe a fine crystal does make a difference in the wine. I don’t know if it has to do with the molecular viscosity aspect ratio of the permeable membrane dynamics or if its due to fairies with pixie dust…but I can tell a difference. (BTW I just made that membrane dynamics stuff up– but sounded good no?)

There are two questions that are usually posed regarding glasses and wine.

1. Can a great glass make a good wine better? {I say yes.}

2. Can a great glass make a mediocre wine great? {No}. There is only so much the fairies can do. Bad wine is bad wine end of story.

But let’s get back to the Eisch test.

I have a set of very nice Waterford glasses from the Robert Mondavi collection, which are pricey but beautiful and really show off a nice wine. I don't use them everyday, and I’m probably not going to serve you wine in them when you visit, but I do drink out of them when I have a nice wine I want to savor.

The Eisch glass instructions said that within two to four minutes the glass would work its magic and aerate the wine as if it were decanted for an hour.

I poured wine into both glasses and waited three minutes. Then to create a double blind scenario, I blind folded a friend and had her smell and taste the wine without letting on which glass was the Eisch and which glass was the Waterford.

Well right off the bat the whole blindfold thing was a disaster because on the first sip she misjudged where her mouth was and spilled wine all over herself. Oh what a mess. But after she got cleaned up we decided it would be best if I just held the glass up to her lips to sip and avoid any more accidents.

So that worked pretty well. She sat blindfolded with her arms to the side and I held the wine up to her like some high priest giving communion. Then right in the middle of the experiment my husband walked in on us and you would of thought we were conducting some sort of satanic ritual the way he looked at me. And I have to admit it did feel kinda of cult like, but not kinky in an Eyes Wide Shut sort of way, just a bit odd is all I’m saying. But I guess he was not expecting to see our neighbor in the living room blindfolded and in her bra*. (*it was a sports bra so not pervey as you might think) Anyway I thought it was hilarious. He did not and mumbled he had to go to the hardware store. But I insisted he stay and try the experiment as well.

Results:

Friend: She found the bouquet more pronounced in the Eisch and felt the wine was more open and fuller and preferred the Eisch to the Waterford glass.

Husband: His impressions were the reverse, he found the wine in the Waterford glass to be more open, fuller bodied, and flavorful.

Me: I found the Eisch glass gave the wine a rounder fuller mouth feel and bigger flavor at first but after about 15 minutes I could not tell a difference between either glass.

So all I can conclude from the experiment is that we did indeed notice differences but could not agree on what the differences were.

Then just for fun we drank the same wine out of coffee cups (Illy heavy white porcelain cups) and that was a shocker. The wine really did not taste as good as it did in the glasses. I’m guessing that it’s because of the way the thick fat lip of the cup makes you purse your lips more and possibly interferes with the palate, while the super fine thin edge of the crystal glass allows you to sip the wine right in between your lips with no awkward mouth maneuvers. I don’t know the reasons for sure, but there really was a noticeable difference in the wine sipped from coffee cups vs. the wine glasses.

Conclusion:

I think there was a difference with the Eisch. But I also think it’s because the Eisch is a nice glass and nice glasses make a difference.

Final summary:

Eisch Glass: $40-45 (SRP)

Cellarrat Pinot Noir: $42

Look on husbands face upon seeing neighbor blindfolded and in her bra: Priceless!

Plotting Pinot

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Roaming the ARTrails

A couple of times a year in the Spring and Fall a wonderful thing called the ARTrails happens in Sonoma County. It’s an event in which participating artists open up their homes and studios to the public to view their work. It’s a great way to meet artists in your immediate neighborhood and to see work that may not be scalable to a gallery viewing, especially those who work in very large formats or incorporate the land on which they live to showcase their work. I visited two artists that go beyond the confines of an indoor studio. Peter Crompton in Santa Rosa is a sculptor painter and set designer. The property around his home is filled with his work both large and small. Peter and his wife have created a magical landscape with their art nestled in the tress and plants and pathways.

You can view more of Peter Cromptons work at his Web site www.cromptondesign.com

I also visited Karen Wyse in Orinda for the East Bay ARTrails. Karen is a sculpture and collagist and a believer in using everything (and I mean everything) in her artwork, nothing is wasted. Like Peter her property is full of trails leading to works nestled around trees roots as well as hanging high from tree limbs. Photos and videos can’t really show the multiple layers upon layers of stuff that permeate Karen’s art and the entire property. It’s all best viewed in person where you can stroll around the grounds and be shocked and amused all at once.

Over the years I have given Karen boxes of items that she recycles into her sculptures and shrines. Last year after my mother passed away I was overwhelmed with stuff from the past, so instead of throwing it out I gave it all to Karen. In the video below I take a close look at one of her large outdoor “installations” that she calls the Voodoo House Shrine and I discover a multitude of things from my past.

Here are a few of the other artists I visited:

Tony Speirs in Graton www.tonyspaintings.blogspot.com

Maylette Welch www.mylettewelch.com

Jewel Kishmiran www.jewlkishmirian.com

Patick Amiot www.patrickamiot-brigittelaurent.com

ARTrails is one of the best free events in the county and great way to support and discover the artist in our midst’s. Visit www.ARTrails.org to learn more.

Harvest Epiphany

Here’s some advice: If you ever get a late night tweet from Dr. David Horowitz, Marketing Professor at Sonoma State University, inviting you to participate in a “fun, fun, fun” grape harvest be very careful before you reply in the affirmative. I did say "Yes" and the next thing I know, Dr. Dave was at my door at 5:00am to whisk me off to an undisclosed vineyard to pick Pinot Noir grapes. As instructed, I brought water, gloves, clippers, hat, sunscreen, and my own 5-gallon bucket.

The vineyard was shrouded in fog when we arrived and I could hear the soft muffled “flump” of the grapes being tossed into buckets between the vines. The cool damp air smelled like cotton candy. We got a quick tutorial on what to look for in the grapes. Clean full clusters--good. Moldy, mostly raisins, or bird pecked clusters-- not so good. Then we were set loose to start harvesting. Oh the thrill of it all. For the first two hours I found it rather meditative and relaxing. (Probably due to the fact I was not yet awake.)

By the third hour the thrill of it all began to wear off and I was in serious need of more than water. But being around all those grapes was not calling me to have wine. Beer was the siren song in my head. Strange thing that.

By the fourth hour I was starting to wonder if Dr. Dave even knew what the word fun meant since he used it so liberally to entice me to the harvest. But he is Marketing Professor after all, so it’s all part of the con job. If something is called fun more than once, it probably means you are in for some hard labor. To maintain my focus and waning energy I tried to imagine I was in Spain or Chile or Italy paying for the experience. This is just the type of activity people with more money than sense would pay dearly for. Would I pay $5000 for the chance to pick grapes in France and stay in a Relais & Chateau property like this? I just might. Of course we gringos are not very good at sustained labor. Our pasty white skin burns quickly and our pudgy hands callous fast and we never shut-up or stop complaining. We like the idea of hard work way more than the doing of it. But we jump at the chance to participate in something authentic and briefly don the mask of one who is no stranger to manual labor. Then afterward we like to bask in the afterglow of a job well done while we get pampered at the Spa.

By the fifth hour, the fog was long gone, the sun directly overhead, and any illusions I had that harvest work was fun had been burned to a crisp. My hands were cramping from squeezing the clippers, and my fingertips were pruned from my grape juice soaked gloves. My arms ached from lifting the buckets and my feet numb from tripping over the mounds of plowed dirt. I began plotting revenge schemes in my head to get back at Dr. Dave for getting me into this chain gang.

Then right about the time I was about to lose all my will to carry on I had an epiphany of sorts or perhaps it was a minor sun stroke, but I realized that I am very much like the Pinot Grape itself— fair, thin-skinned and weather sensitive. And with the sun directly overhead, I too was close to being crushed. Yet despite my whining, I have to admit I did manage to have some fun. Plus I learned a few very important things along the way:

1. I am the perfect height for picking grapes. 5’1” is the magic metric if you want to avoid breaking your back bending over to reach the grapes.

2. The joy of harvest decreases exponentially with the declination of the sun. It’s all fun and games till the fog burns off.

3. The professional grape harvesters are amazing to watch, poetry in motion with speed and efficiency. {The four professional Mexican laborers picked more in two hours than all the rest of us did in six hours.}

4. No matter when you ask the grape boss or harvest master (or whatever you call the person in charge) how much longer to go, they will always reply—“Just one more bin to go. Keep picking!”

5. Cutting off the finger of a person on the opposite side of the vine from you is considered to be very bad form.

I think my eight hours of grape harvest experience may just last me a lifetime. And here's one more bit of advice in case you get invited to a harvest--Just say "Oh I'd love to, but I can't make it that day." And then run in the other direction.